This is the illusionist in which I, Helen Zoltzman, howl at the linguistic moon.

In this episode, we're in our feelings, or at least prodding some of the words in the

lexicon that are about feelings, start an emotionally rousing or demanding episode

to listen to it. I think no hankies required. However, I will issue the following content

note. There are mentions of death, cancer in adults and babies, and suicide. There are

also a few category B squares on with the show.

I was struggling with trying to figure out really what the difference is between sympathy and empathy.

Can either of you help me help myself?

Ooh, this is complicated because these are complicated words that have gotten all tangled up

in each other, right?

I've had to look up sympathy and empathy so many times today alone to try to fix

my mind what the difference is because I do find that they're often used as if they're interchangeable,

which my descriptive ispring should be fine with but it clashes with my hankering for semantic clarity.

Both words share the path same as in paecos and pathetic. This was Greek for emotion or suffering.

Sympathy has been in English since the late 16th century and etymologically means feeling together,

so it's a feeling you share with someone else. Compassion is a Latin translation of the same thing.

Meanwhile, the word empathy is a relative newcomer to English from the early 1900s,

and it is more about understanding someone's feelings without having to have those feelings

yourself. But like feelings themselves is difficult to keep these words tidy and defined and not

confused. Sympathy does involve understanding from your own perspective, but empathy involves

you doing the work to put yourself in somebody else's shoes. Like a projection.

Right, for example, we've gone through this hellish year where my babies had cancer,

...